ZAKOPANE ⛄ (November 2017)

It's time for the most beautiful Polish mountains-Tatry.  Zakopane is the largest urban center in the immediate vicinity of the Tatras, a major winter sports center, which has long been called informally the winter capital of Poland. There's about 100km from Kracow. You can come there by bus, train or by car. When is the best time to visit Zakopane? The season is all year. At summer you can go hiking in the mountains and enjoy the views. At winter you can also try winter sports...skiing, sledding, winter snowboarding, ice skating and so on. It's up to you! 😀

one of Wroclaw's dwarfs

Me and my friends went to Zakopane just for weekend. There is about 550km from Poznan. We chose 2 kinds of transport "Train+PolskiBus (POZ-WRO by train  + WRO-ZAK by PolskiBus). We started on Thursday in the evening so early morning (4:30) on Friday we arrived in Zakopane. According to timetable we should be in Zakopane about 6:00 (our driver was crazy! 😃). Ealier arrival was a little bit complicated because every restaurants and pubs were closed. Fortunately Paula arrived to Zakopane one day ealier and we went walk to her hotel(3,5km!-every training is good even at 4:30😂). We were drinking champagne at in
Zakopane early morning! It was kind of celebration our visit there🍷. 

We could get into our apartment for 7:00a.m. It was even better because normally hotel day starts at 2p.m. We were lucky! Noone were in our apartment day before. We found a great apartment next to Krupówki with a perfect view for mountains in a nice price.

view of the apartment

We took a short nap and than we went directly to "Termy Chochołowkie". There is one of the best aquaparks in area of Zakopane (It's about 15km from Zakopane-normal ticket for a bus cost about 4,5złoty). If you buy a ticket for aquapark by website(like for example www.groupon.pl) you pay 47zł per all day include sauna. It's a good price! Aquapark offer you many outdoors and indoors pools, jacuzzi, a lot of sauna, brine pools, slides, restaurants and a lot of another attractions. I think the best one is outdoor pool with hot water. You can relaxing in water with a view for mountains! AMAZING!

Everyone who visits Zakopane should try typical "Górlaskich" dishes and food (Górale-people who live in the mountains). Among them are for example:

1- OSCYPEK: bard boiled smoked cheese prepared from salted sheep's milk, characterictic fro Polish mountains, especialy Podhale. Produced usually in the form of small, spindle blocks with a typical region for the decoration of the edges.

2- KWAŚNICA- traditional dish of Polish highland cuisine, soup made from pickled cabbage and meat usually eaten with potatoes or bread.

3.ŻUREK- is one of the oldest Polish soup. It's based on sourdough rye flour. It can be served with cooked and fried bacon potatoes or just with sausages and boiled eggs. (It's more "śląska" soup. I mean soup from south Poland but not exactly from Zakopane)

4. MOSKOLE- baked patties on a plate, regional cuisine of the Podhale region. The main ingredients for making moskoles are: cooked and mashed potatoes, flour and water, kitchen salt, sometimes eggs.

5. BRYNDZA- soft, rennet cheese made from sheep's milk

 

6. HAŁUSKI- potato nudles, regional cuisine of the Podhale region. Noodles are made from grated potatoes, flour and salt.

7. PLACEK ZBÓJNICKI (Robbery cake) - type of potato cake. The cake comes from Podhale, Poland or Slovakia. It is made from potatoes, flour, onions, bacon, lard, garlic, spices and eggs. It is often served with goulash or sour cream.

  

mulled wine (popular drink)

Some polish words sound a little bit different in mountains! Look at this menu!

 (unfortunatelly only people who speaks polish can notice different 😯  

 ...famous "Krupówki-street"....    ➤

"Krupówki" is a representative street in Zakopane located in the city center. It starts at the intersection with Nowotorska-street and continue on the one kilometer long promenade to the south. There are many small shops with souvenirs, stalls with traditionals clothes, some pubs and restaurants with typical regional dishes (🙈 unfortunatelly I saw there also McDonald's between beautiful wooden restaurants. HAHA Maybe hamburgers taste better in Zakopane than in another cities 😂😂  who knows! 😂).

 

On Saturday morning we woke up and went directly to place where start cableway to "Kasprowy Wierch". Kasprowy Wierch is a top in the West Tatras with a height of 1987 m. It is located in the main ridge of the Tatra Mountains and at the Polish-Slovak border. The ticket for a cableway costed 100zł (return ticket). We bought tickets one day before in special ticket machine. I think at season it could be a little bit more expensive. It's always better to buy ticket by internet because queue are crazy looooooong. I heard in the middle of season people have to wait some hours!!! While you are going by cableway you can watching wonderful views around. Everyone spends about 1,5h on the top and than back down(of course if someone has got return ticket😄). On the top was -7͒degrees. I heard there is still snow. While we were asking about way to the cableway everyone told we should choose another day because it was too foggy! Finally when we arrived to the top the sky was clear. We could admire the views of the mountains around!

 

  

   

After back to centre of Zakopane we went to eat local lunch and drink mulled wine in stylish wooden pub with "góralska" music. I fell in love that wooden buildings!

We enjoyed our time by some hours and than came back to apartment. We decided to spend some hours relaxing and "recharge the batteries" before party at night. Our hotel offered include jacuzzi and sauna for guests.

The goal of the evening was find a traditional "góralski" pub with local music. One of the best place  (according to the recommendations of local people) is "WATRA restaurant". There is wooden big restaurant on Krupówki-street. That party looked like one big wedding with orchestra and typical local music.  I remembered one song of Sławomir "Miłość w Zakopanem". We heard that song many times. I don't like so much discopolo music but this one reminds me that great time. Everyone was dancing each other like one big family! I reccommed that place for everyone! I think It's always better to choose unusual kind of club. Another new experience!

Sunday morning we went to Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Zakopane Krzeptówki. It's the most famous church there. This church was visited by pope Jan Paweł II in 1997r. The next point was GUBAŁÓWKA. It's longitudingal altitude from which we can see mountain panorama (1126 m n.p.m.). We can get there by special tram. We paid for return ticket 23zloty. On the top of Gubałowka we saw wonderful view for mountains and city. What is more beyond of admiring the view we can eat delicious dishes in one of the wooden restaurant. Of course we chose traditional "góralski" dishes! After some hours we came back down. We bought some souvenirs and went directly to bus station.

  About 5p.m. we had got bus back to Wroclaw and than train to Gniezno. It was a crazy long way but it was worth seeing such beautiful place.

Honestly it was the third time in the mountains and first time in Zakopane!  I fell in love Zakopane. I'm sure I will come back there to climb the mountains...maybe on spring or summer! 😍

SEE YOU ZAKOPANE ! ! !